Jittered

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To experience quick, small movements characterized by trembling or shaking while also showing signs of nervous excitement, anxiety, or erratic behavior in an unpredictable manner
2. Moved with rapid, slight shaking motions ; experienced feelings of nervousness or anxious excitement
3. Shifted in quick, small trembles or shakes ; showed signs of restlessness or uneasy excitement

Etymology: Jitter is one of those words that sounds like what it describes. The source ties it to chitter, an older verb meaning to tremble or shiver, which in turn came from Middle English chittern, "to twitter or chatter." Behind that lies a sound-based root: the same kind of rapid, rattling noise and motion appears in related words such as didder and teeter, and in German zittern, "to tremble." Linguists treat these as onomatopoeic, built to mimic the shiver of a body or the chatter of teeth rather than descended from a single ancestral word. Jitter itself has a plainer structure. It is formed from the stem "jit" with the suffix "-er," which here marks a repeated or ongoing action, so the verb carries the idea of many small tremors in quick succession. Adding "-ed" gives the past form, jittered, describing a shake or flutter that has already happened.

Synonyms: shook, quivered, trembled, shivered, vibrated

Antonyms: calmed, settled, stilled, stabilized, relaxed